How to Promote Personal and Online Training Services on Instagram

December 12, 2018

December 12, 2018

Instagram is a powerful tool that can help you reach a larger audience and promote your services to new and current clients. For personal trainers who want to 3x their income by entering the virtual training world, Instagram’s image and video centric platform is the perfect place to showcase your new workouts and show your clients what they can expect when they sign up for virtual training with you. Below are a few ways you can use Instagram to promote your services and boost your business.

Create Short Videos

Instagram’s platform only allows for videos that are fewer than 60 seconds in length, so you have a limited space to play with. Don’t worry — you won’t have to condense your latest 30 minute HIIT workout into 60 seconds. Instagram’s shorter video requirements can be a blessing in disguise. Most followers respond well to short and sweet content and shorter videos require less energy and effort from you. Videos are a great way to get personal with your clients, talk to them directly, and show them examples of your workouts and virtual training. Try creating a couple videos where you show yourself conducting several of the workouts in your programming. You can edit them from your phone and cut out the parts you don’t want.

Here are some ideas for short videos you can post on your Instagram feed:

An introduction to yourself and your training

Quick workout videos to show clients what you’re all about

Testimonials from current clients

Healthy workout recipes

Videos or recordings of virtual sessions with clients’ permission

Remember, people who find you on Instagram won’t just view the latest video you posted. Odds are that they’ll check out your entire profile and view several.

Use Video Sequences to Illustrate how one Workout is Performed

Because Instagram only allows for videos that are one minute long, it can be difficult to show how a full workout is performed. With the video sequence feature on Instagram you can incorporate several different videos into one cohesive Instagram post. Your followers can watch your first video and then swipe over to the left to continue watching additional videos in the same post.

This makes things easier for your followers and allows you to illustrate how one workout is performed through Instagram. By showing your followers how a workout is performed, you’re giving them a glance into what it’s like to have you as a personal trainer. Once they try out one of your virtual workouts, they’ll be hooked and want more.

Use Hashtags to get Found

When it comes to social media, specifically Instagram, hashtags can make or break your business. Followers on Instagram often seek out new Instagram accounts and content by searching for specific hashtags that relate to the topic or type of content they’re looking for. By doing some hashtag research and some Instagram searching yourself, you can see what hashtags are popular in the fitness industry and what hashtags other accounts similar to yours are using.

Make sure you are using a combination of broader and more specific hashtags. For example, hashtags like #fitness #health #workout will get you noticed by people interested in fitness and working out in general. Also including hashtags like #burpees #virtualtraining #abworkouts, can help narrow down your target audience and help people who are looking for more specific topics find you as well.

Keep color contrast in mind when filming

The type of content you post on Instagram is important, but so it how that content looks. Since Instagram is such a visual platform, the way you present yourself and the quality of your content is vital to your success. Keep things like contrast and lighting in mind when filming workout videos.

Don’t film in a dark room when you can film yourself outdoors on a nice grassy lawn. Also consider things like the angle you’re filming from and music or audio you want to have in the background. Because health and fitness accounts on Instagram are abundant, the quality and look of your content will help set you apart from your competitors.

Link to a page where prospects can book and pay

When you promote your services on social media, you’d traditionally only be able to convert eyeballs into clients if they live close enough to train with you. When you offer virtual training, your income potential skyrockets. Instead of several thousand potential clients, you’re opening yourself up to work with several million. Better yet, you will save time and energy from not having to travel as well as reap the benefits of having clients pay ahead of their scheduled session.